Indiana Jones is the sort of man that could work his way out of any problem. The powers of his charm, good looks, incredible knowledge, agility, endurance, problem-solving, and that cool whip also figured in his narrow escapes and successful journeys. I think in the heart of most leaders is a desire to be a cool, calm, and capable as Indiana Jones.

But in reality, we cannot trust ourselves with these things, because, as I wrote in a previous post (Trusting Our Leadership Idols) we will turn them into little “gods” and put our faith in them. And they will always let us down.

So disaster will overtake you,and you won’t be able to charm it away.Calamity will fall upon you,and you won’t be able to buy your way out.A catastrophe will strike you suddenly,one for which you are not prepared – Isaiah 47:11

Personality:

Indiana Jones had personality in abundance. There comes a day when our charm will let us down. Too often we trust in our personality, our ability to influence and persuade as means to leadership success. But, because we are not Indiana Jones or Jesus, these “idols” will not save us from disaster.

Possessions:

Indiana Jones had a sweet whip, suave hat, and cool leather jacket that he could count on again and again. But in reality, reliance on our things is reliance on that which will fail us. Our material possession, wealth, resources, and the like won’t do what only God can do. Eventually, we face a problem that we cannot “buy” ourselves out of. Our “idol” of stuff, the perceived power of possessions, is not powerful enough to prevent calamity.

Plans:

Indian Jones always had a plan. As he said, “Nothing surprises me; I’m a scientist.”All leaders have plans, but when we turn them into “idols” or “gods” we are planning for failure. We may trust in our knowledge, our understanding, and our plan, but they will not be able to avert of from catastrophe if we worship them with complete trust and dependence.

Since we are not Indiana Jones, our personality, possessions, and plans are not enough to save us from the leadership disasters, calamities, and catastrophes of this world. We see time and time again in leaders of every stripe who fail because they trusted in and depended on themselves, in their personalities, possessions, and plans.

Penitence:

Penitence is a lost idea in our culture. I am sure not many leaders have ever considered the role of penitence in leadership. But I believe we must call our selves to a place of penitence. To confess we have worshipped “idols” and “gods” of our own making and have trusted in these to our detriment. Let us penitently turn away from these false of “gods” personality, possessions, and plans. Let us return to a position of dependence.

True leadership power does not reside in our personalities, possessions, or plans. The power to lead through disasters, calamities, and catastrophes must come through penitently turning away from ourselves and in faithful dependence and trust turning toward the power of God alone.

The penitent leader is the one who returns to the source of their leadership calling, to the source of their leadership mission. He is our Prince, our Perfector our paschal lamb, our Priest, our provider, and our power. Let us daily penitently pass over our

Let us daily penitently pass over our self-power and take hold of His true power.

“And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” ~ Isaiah 37:19-20

When, like King Hezekiah, you are in need of rescue, who do you turn to for help?

Examples are legion of leaders turning to the wrong things to save themselves. In Super Bowl XLIX Peter Carroll turned to the pass when he should have trusted the run. Kodak trusted film more than they trusted the potential of digital. General George Armstrong believed his ego over military reality, and Blockbuster trusted their unproven online ability over Netflix’s offer of a partnership.

As leaders, we must remind ourselves daily that we will be tempted to trust in “idols of wood and stone” of our making instead of God alone.

We are tempted to believe in our “gods” of size, speed, or fame.

We may be tempted to treat our strategy, our significance, our models, our cleverness, and our methods as sources of salvation.

We turn our attendance, our budgets into “gods” that will save us.

We are tempted to look to our social, cultural, political, and economic power as the thing we trust…the “gods” of success.

The world relies on “gods of wood and stone” to save itself.

The world trusts what it can create.

The world trusts size, speed, status, and significance.

The world trusts strategies, methods, and models.

The world trusts intelligence, cleverness, and education.

The world trusts social, cultural, political, and economic influence and power.

The world trusts big budgets and big attendance.

The world makes idols of these things. Good things turned into ultimate things, turned into “god” things. Things made with their own hands, shaped with their own minds, become objects of misshapen and misdirected worship.

But they cannot be trusted. These idols, these “gods” can be burned and destroyed.

We must trust the Lord alone.

What am I trusting in to save me?

Temporal or eternal?
Of my hand or God’s?
Myself or God?

Do I believe in the same “gods” the world is trusting in to save me or bring success?

Why is it that we are confident in ourselves and the idols we have carved with our head, heart, and hands over the God of all creation? Why do we as leaders trust our resources instead of the source?

The battle of a leader is not to produce success, results, or achievements, but for faithfulness, trust, and dependence on God above ourselves. It is to allow God to carve our heart, soul, mind, and strength into an image of Himself instead of allowing ourselves to carve “gods” and idols of our inclination and image.

The leader’s battle is to trust God-directed surrender over personal strength and significance. To identify with God or over and against our idols.

“What fools they are who carry around their wooden idols and pray to gods that cannot save!” Isaiah 45:20

“Dear fellas, I can’t believe how fast things move on the outside…The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.” ~ Brooks Hatlen || The Shawshank Redemption

I can relate to character Brook Hatlen’s sentiment about the world getting itself into a big hurry. Often, when I lift my eyes from the pages of Gospels, I feel a tension between what I have read and the world into which I must mind and body return. I see in Jesus, a life so unhurried, so interruptible, so unbusy, so at ease, so fruitful, I ask myself, “How am I going to do this, to live like this, to lead like this, in a world that is moving a light speed?”

Alan Fadling‘s book An Unhurried Leader provides a road map into just how a leader might live this sort of life. Through his own stories, he calls us to acknowledge our drivenness, our anxiety, and the reality that we often fail to see that our influence must come out of the abundance of God’s presence in our lives. Hurry hampers our lives, so our lives must be reordered and realigned through quietness, trust, repentance, and rest.

If we are to lead in an unhurried way, we must lead out of abundance. He reminds us that if we are working with God, we will work and lead in a way that is in keeping with who God is. So, we must lead out an abundance of Christ and out of the presence of Christ. Alan reminds us that we often rush to create and build our visions for God and miss waiting for our vision to intersect with His. Alan reminds us that at leaders we must ask ourselves if we are willing to humbly, but boldly ask for a vision and wait.

What I enjoyed so much about this book is that it is calling us to something we, in one sense already know as leaders, but also calling us to do and become what we so very much desire, but often are too rushed or too afraid to do. We know our souls are desperate to be unhurried. We know that we can find power in our weakness, powerlessness, humility, and dependence, but we allow ourselves to be rushed and hurried and so fail to grasp these conduits of power. Alan, chapter after chapter calls us back and points the way.

An Unhurried Leader is not just a book about spiritual disciplines, but Alan does provide questions at the end of each chapter that will prompt you to consider the ideas and enter a time of unhurried reflection to consider what God might have to say to you.

In a world that has “got itself in a big damn hurry” and in a leadership culture that focused on speed, An Unhurried Leader calls us to a different way. Alan reminds us that we can rush by, sipping and snacking or we can stop, pause, eat and drink of the abundance of Christ and lead out of this power.

When Airbnb was founded in 2008, most its users were in New York City, but the founders of the company lived in Los Angeles. At one point in the early days of Airbnb, when the company was still small, like 50 people small, co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky has a fateful conversation with Paul Graham. Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator. Paul simply points out that Brian should be in New York talking to the customers they have in person. In other words, the founder of Airbnb should be going door-to-door talking to their users. Brian’s response to Paul advice was, “But, that won’t scale.”

All leaders, especially leaders who are building something from the ground up face a temptation to scale quickly. Building a system that will scale is a good thing. But missing the opportunity to do small things now, unscalable things now will ultimately help when the idea does scale.

This was the secret behind discovering what people loved. Talking to people, asking questions, getting to know their likes and dislikes, etc., was the key to building Airbnb into the global brand it is today.

Planting a new church, launching a new campus, or beginning a new ministry brings with it the temptation to scale quickly. But there are once in a “lifetime” opportunities that should not be missed while the church, campus, or ministry is still small.

The chance to spend time talking in depth with people, listening to people, getting to know their stories, pouring into people personally are opportunities available while the church, campus, or ministry is still small; before it scales.

These small interactions can pay big dividends in meeting the needs of people as the church, campus, or ministry scales up in size. These are moments that will not be possible at a certain size, but they are possible now.

Leaders should remember that there are lessons to be learned, and opportunities to be had at every level of scale. Let us not miss these opportunities of the “small” in our rush to the “large.”

It is precisely the fact that something will not scale which makes it a precious commodity that is available only for a time. There is power in small that should not be squandered on the way to scale. There are things that you will never again be able to do, that you can do right now. Don’t miss it.

A question to consider.
What sort of leadership legacy is your church or ministry producing?

Football Coaches are often measured by what is called a “coaching tree.” A coaching tree, like a family tree, charts the coaches who developed underneath a particular coach and then went on to coach in the college or the NFL.

In business, there is a famous example called the “PayPal Mafia.” PayPal, founded by Peter Thiel, was able to develop many other successful leaders. The “PayPal Mafia” is a nickname given to a group of former PayPal employees who went on to found and develop their own successful technology companies such as

“and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” ~2nd Timothy 2:2

In the Bible, Paul and Timothy are an oft cited example of a legacy of faith. Paul developed and influenced Timothy who went on to carry the ministry forward after Paul.

So back to my question. What sort of leadership legacy is your church or ministry producing?

Is your church producing leaders who go on to launch other churches and other ministries?

What does your “leadership tree” look like?

Does your culture equip and empower to the point it spawns other incredibly impactful organizations?

The answers to these questions will largely hinge on whether you as a leader have decided that developing other leaders, that enlisting, equipping, empowering, encouraging other leaders is a value in your church or ministry. If this is the case, develop a plan, map out a pathway, and create a system to support the end goal.

As my friend Todd Adkins is known to say, “A big part of leadership is recognizing that your fruit often grows on other peoples trees.”

One measure of an effective church is not just the fruit of its own ministry, but the growing other trees. Not just fruit, but orchards. A leadership orchard that is repeating the cycle of producing fruit and growing more trees.

The measure of leadership fruit is more leadership trees.

Show me what the people who leave do after they leave. That speaks to the kind of organization you are.

In a previous role, I helped grow one of Saddleback’s campuses from 3 services to 6 services, 2 of which were off-site venues in other cities. In the post, I describe the ten dimensions I used to develop a ministry leadership pipeline.

I just completed some reading in church history. Studying history reminds me how valuable it can be for leaders to learn from the lessons of the past.

During the 1930’s, the country France decided it must apply the lessons of past it and its military leaders learned during the during the bloodbath of the World War I.

The result was the Maginot Line. The Maginot line reflected the hard fought and costly lessons of the past war. France, not wanting to fail at applying the lessons of experience, built a concrete monument to the lessons of history. France had seen the horror of frontal attack trench warfare and determined that they would prevent an attack from Germany by constructing an impressive set of military fortifications–fortifications so robust, no country would dare conduct a frontal attack again.

France built the Maginot line to fight the last war based on faulty assumptions.

Assumption: Germany would not violate Belgian or Dutch sovereignty.

Assumption: Air power was overrated

Assumption: Canons do not need to rotate because their position could not be outflanked.

Germany too learned some lessons from World War I. They decided that instead of fighting the same war, they would fight a new war–a different war. Germany saw the potential of speed, maneuver, and shock to reshape warfare.

The Maginot Line is a monument to the failure of imagination.

Germany drew lessons of imagination and innovation from the past. France drew the lesson of having a more improved past.

What, I wonder, is the 21st Century Church failing to imagine or see the potential of?

Take for example the online church. The lesson of the past would be to see the online church as a digital, on-demand, church service. In other words, it just a technologically enabled way to do the same thing–listen to a pastor teach a sermon.

Imagine, though if the online church was something different that we have not yet conceived or apprehended yet.

We assume it is just a message on a screen. What if it is something entirely different that we have not imagined yet because we are locked into our assumptions of what is and not what it could be.

The online church might be:

An underutilized learning and development platform.

A pre-core church planting gathering tool.

A searchable archive of Bible illustrations and lessons.

A digital discipleship platform

A transformer of spaces and places into temporary worship services

A carrier of the Gospel into the digital landscape millions of people inhabit for hours each day and week.

The only church available for satellite, Moon-based, and Mars-based facilities.

France had a fixed view how things should play out.

France had no flexibility of imagination. Germany experienced the same lessons and drew entirely different ideas from it.

The Maginot Line is still there. It stands a monument to not seeing what might be. Our thoughts about the church will either serve the future or become monuments to our failed imagination. Let us pray it is the latter.

Nearly 2000 years before Jesus, the then king of Old Babylon developed the first law code for Mesopotamia.His name was Hammurabi, and his laws are known to us today as “The Code of Hammurabi.” One of the clauses of the code called for people to be put to death if a house fell and killed an owner because of flawed construction.

Faulty construction is deadly. The same might be said of ministry.I have seen ministries fall over and kill the occupants. A bit of hyperbole? Yes. But hyperbole with a point.

While I served at one of my churches campuses, we quickly grew from 3 services to 6 services with about 1700 people a weekend. Two of those services were off-site venues in other cities. With an incredibly small staff, the potential for the ministry to fall over and “kill” its occupants seemed high. But it didn’t. It was constructed properly.

The key to construction element was a pipeline. I don’t mean indoor plumbing. No, what I am talking about is a Leadership Pipeline. Building a Leadership Pipeline for each of the nearly 40 ministries was the essential element to framing up a stable structure.

Here is a summary of 10 Dimensions I considered when building our Leadership Pipeline.

Decide

You must make the decision that you want to develop leaders. This decision has two parts.

Part 1: Ministry is not doing, but leading.

Instead of looking at the ministry as a “work to be done,” view it instead through the “levels of leadership” lens.

In other words, every single person, staff or volunteer, who is serving the church or ministry, is doing so at a particular level of leadership. They are serving at a given level of leadership.

Part 2: Decide that you will have a growth mindset.

This will require you to always thinking about “WHO” will replace a leader when they move up to the next level of leadership. Why? Because a growth mindset recognizes that people have the potential to grow in their leadership ability. In other words, you must see that succession planning is required for every level of leadership in your ministry.

Design

You must intentionally design the leadership role. What are they going to do?

Design what you want their leadership to accomplish.

Design their responsibilities – their boundaries- expectations – etc.

Define

Each level of leadership has a different set of corresponding skills,

You must specify the values—what is important. Explain the productive uses of time at that level. Define their thought process and perspective. And explain the inherent cultures, values, viewpoints at that level of leadership

Benefits:

1) It helps you understand what sorts of skills, uses of time, and values are critical to success at this particular level.

2) It helps you prepare people for leading at the next level because you have defined it.

Discern

Prayerfully discern who has the potential for leadership at this level. You are not just looking for a warm body. Remember…this is about building depth of leadership into your ministry. It’s about building a bench It’s about preparing for succession…when they move to the next level of leadership. So, discernment is essential.

Describe

Explain what leading at a particular level in a particular ministry is. Try to give them a sense of the leadership role. Make it tangible. Help potential leaders experience it for a day or even shadow someone. A clear description will lessen their anxiety, provides clarity, and helps them better pray and discern their calling as well.

Develop for Now

We must help people properly “onboard” into their new role of leadership. Developing leaders here is about helping them navigate the transition from one leadership level to the next successfully.People need onboarding that is meaningful. Too often we throw people to the wolves and say, “Good luck.” So, they quit, or they fail. Learning on the job is essential, but we need to take the time to integrate people into the new role properly.

Delegate

They have got to have the empowerment to go Lead. If you properly developed them, they are ready.

That means two things for you.

1. Get out of the way. Stop micromanaging. THE GOAL IS TO TEACH

2. Don’t allow leaders to reach back down to the level of leadership below them and muck things up.That is not their job. This sort of leadership behavior clogs the pipeline because neither leader is developing to their level.

Let leaders lead!

Develop for Next

To develop leaders, create opportunities to expose them to leadership at the next level. Not just how they should be thinking NOW, but also what or how will they need to think at the NEXT level?

We start Developing them NOW for what is NEXT.

Determine & Discuss

Monitor how people are leading. Check in with them. Go over the results. Feedback is meaningful and powerful for leaders and their development.

There is a fine line between EMPOWERMENT and NEGLECT

Damage Control

Act if difficulties arise.

Allowing a failing leader to remain at their level of leadership is terrible stewardship of our people and the ministry. It does harm to the ministry. It does harm to the individual.

Take action:

Move them back a level.

Move them out of the ministry.

A Leadership Pipeline is an essential element to the construction of any successful ministry. It will keep your structure standing during the storm and will allow you to add on when opportunities arise. Think of it as building indoor plumbing. Bring leaders in and build them up.

There is medical and scientific research to back me up. Researchers in Australia changed the salt levels in the lunches they gave their participants in a university experiment. The people who had the most salt added to their food thought their food tasted the best and they wanted to eat more. The salty flavor increased consumption 11% over the other participants.

So, science has proved that you can never just have one potato chip!

Something similar has happened to me when it comes to reading the Bible. I am reading more. I didn’t add salt. In fact, what has made the difference for me was not adding something, but taking something away.

For the past few months, I have been using Crossway’s ESV Reader’s Bible (Six-volume set). Each volume is cloth bound, single column, with lots of white space, and larger font. But it is what they have taken away that has made the difference. Crossway has removed all the major section headings, the chapter numbers, the verse numbers, and all the footnotes. And I read more.

Crossway’s Reader Edition has a created a “Potato Chip” habit.

When I start, it is hard to stop.

What I realized is that section headings, and even verse numbers somehow encouraged me to stop reading, not continue reading. I found that, for me, having section headings, verses, cross-references, notes, etc. created artificial stopping points. It was as it all those features were telling me, “Hey, just read to this point and stop.” They didn’t send me a set, I had to use my own hard earned money, but it has been worth it. I would recommend it to you.

Removing those elements has created a “Potato Chip” habit for me in the Bible. I don’t want to stop. I just keep going.

I began to wonder, in what other areas and in what other ways could I create “Potato Chip” habits. Prayer, for instance, was an area I wanted to grow in. I started journaling my prayers. The simple practice of writing my prayer somehow kept me more engaged and focused during my prayer time, and I began to prayer longer, and I began to enjoy my prayer time more. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to pray more.

Journaling my prayers had created a “Potato Chip” habit.

I am experimenting with other ideas, and I may share later as I learn what works for me. For example, I have been using Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours prayer books to try to increase my frequency of extended prayer.